Academics and Microtonality

There is another possibility that Brian M. might be failing to consider in
his suggestion that academia is preventing progress in microtonality.

I don't know if the people I've addressed the topic with would qualify as
academics as such. Two that I can recall right off the bat hold MM degrees, and
a third has I think "only" a BA. The BA in particular is about 82 years old,
and played bassoon for many years in various orchestras around the world. (Her
husband, Alfio Pignatti, although he didn't record a lot, was a very
highly-regarded violinist.) She now teaches piano mostly. The MMs are your
typical, four-gig-a-week wind-instrument performers, giving private lessons the
rest of the time.

Of the three, the BA is almost certainly the most stereotypically academic.
Her reaction to microtonal music is essentially of the nature of, "that's
interesting; I'm glad you're studying it", but she herself probably won't
pursue it.

The MM trombonist probably has the most positive reaction of the three. (The
MM "Master of Music" degree, for those who dont' know is mostly an "applied",
performance-oriented degree.) When I mentioned that I was into unusual tunings,
his response was "wow, amazing that you'd say that, because I've been thinking
about getting into microtones recently!" He hasn't though; he's barely had
time even to return my phone calls.

The other MM, my saxophone instructor, hasn't shown terribly much interest in
nontraditional tunings at all. But I certainly wouldn't characterize his
reactions as negative by any means, just not terribly interested.

So what is this other possibility that Brian may not be considering regarding
Academia's attitude toward nontraditional tunings? "Interesting but Unproven"
in short. They need more evidence that exploring it will pay off, mostly
figuratively speaking, but also quite literally as well.

Any thoughts on that?


Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 24 Nov 1996 05:30 +0100
Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA05613; Sun, 24 Nov 1996 05:31:35 +0100
Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA05681
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id UAA17889; Sat, 23 Nov 1996 20:31:26 -0800
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 20:31:26 -0800
Message-Id:
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu

> Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 21:29:04 -0700 (MST)
> From: John Starrett
> To: tuning
> Subject: tuning digest archive
>
>
> I have been looking for certain recent posts and have had trouble
> finding anything from 1996 in the Mills tuning digest archive. Are they
> not yet included, or is there another address I should try?
> John Starrett

It took me a bit of digging into the list processor to find out, but
here's how you do it; send a message to listproc@eartha.mills.edu
including this text:

get listproc/lists/tuning digest.905

Change the number at the end to the digest you want. If you don't know
which digest you want, there are indexes of subject headers for some
archives. There are also text string search commands and other useful
stuff that the list processor can do. Send the command HELP alone in a
message to get started on decoding the list processor.

I just started receiving the daily list and I've been working backwards
through the archives as well, which is how I found your letter above.

Matt Nathan

Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 21 Dec 1996 18:44 +0100
Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA14626; Sat, 21 Dec 1996 18:46:38 +0100
Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA22270
Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
for id JAA07055; Sat, 21 Dec 1996 09:46:36 -0800
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 09:46:36 -0800
Message-Id: <199612211246_MC2-DC6-121E@compuserve.com>
Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu